2026 DDOT Performance Oversight Hearing Testimony

January 28, 2026

The Washington Area Bicyclist Association (WABA), on behalf of its 5,000 members and nearly 23,000 regional advocacy supporters, appreciates the opportunity to testify on this occasion. 

We will also presume to speak for the 18,000 DC residents who bike to work on a daily basis according to goDCgo, the District Department of Transportation (DDOT)’s sustainable transportation initiative – that figure represents 5% of commuters, according to goDCgo – and for the many, many thousands of shared mobility users who logged 6,369,376 Capital Bikeshare (CaBi) rides in 2025, breaking the annual ridership record for the third consecutive year. According to Ride Report, the combined ridership of all permitted micromobility providers (excluding Capital Bikeshare) totaled 12,440,900 trips in 2025. 

We at WABA appreciate council members’ and DDOT’s year-round diligence,  responsiveness, and accountability, so we will use this testimony opportunity to discuss three overarching concerns: transportation safety, extending and boosting the safety of the District’s bike network, and expanding mobility options.

Our take is that DDOT’s recent record is mixed. DDOT has many accomplishments, albeit diminished by project safety compromises made in contravention to the District’s moveDC transportation standards. 

Traffic Safety and Vision Zero

Our top priority is transportation safety. Every District resident and visitor should be able to travel within the city without fear of being struck and injured or killed by a motor vehicle. 

We appreciate DDOT’s work that has helped lower DC’s annual traffic-death toll to 25 people killed in traffic crashes in 2025. Twenty-five is the smallest toll since 2012. The District’s automated safety camera program has helped stem violations. However the city remains far from meeting its Vision Zero promise, elimination of traffic deaths and serious injuries. And disturbingly, per DDOT’s 2026 Pre-Hearing Responses, “Bicycle Major Injury crashes increased dramatically this year compared to previous years.” 

DDOT must redouble its efforts, particularly in creating safe  infrastructure. And in particular, DDOT must reverse project safety compromises that contravene moveDC policy.

Washington D.C.’s Bicycle Network 

Regarding a next concern, the city’s bike network, let’s start with successes: 

• DDOT completed and opened the Metropolitan Branch Trail segment between Fort Totten and Takoma. Excellent!
• Also wonderful: The transformation of Dave Thomas Circle and the creation of Mamie “Peanut” Johnson Plaza; extension of K Street NE protected bike lanes under the Metro/Amtrak overpass; completion of 17th St SE bike lanes between Potomac Ave. SE and East Capitol St.; and new MBT connections on M St. NE and Riggs Rd. NE.
• We’re thrilled that construction of the Connecticut Ave. deckover and the Pennsylvania Ave. West projects is underway, and that design has advanced for other bikeway projects.

Yet DDOT’s FY 2025 Performance Accountability Report states that DDOT delivered only 3.46 miles of protected bike lanes that year, far short of both the 10 mile target and moveDC’s 2021 Strategy #21 calling for “at least five miles annually.”

The Strategic Bikeways Plan process has been well thought out with many opportunities for public comment. (The SBP “will inform both a preliminary long‑range Vision Bikeways Network and a draft 5‑year work plan for future bikeway enhancements.“) However we are disappointed that DDOT has used the Strategic Bikeways Plan process as an excuse to pause – to put on hold – several well-advanced bikeway projects, concentrated in Ward 3. DDOT has the capacity and funding to advance these projects, letting politics trump safety.  

• The Jenifer St. and 44th St. NW project is at 100% design, and the Western Ave. NW protected bike lane project is at 30% design. We see no non-technical reason for the holds; again, we know funding is in place. DDOT should unpause these projects and any other design-phase projects that have been paused.

Further, DDOT has actively lessened the safety of several projects, in contravention of District policy and procedures as laid out in moveDC, the city’s multimodal long-range transportation plan. 

Mayor Muriel Bowser stated that moveDC is “built on a framework of goals: safety, equity, mobility, project delivery, management and operations, sustainability, and enjoyable spaces. It reflects our commitment to not only provide excellent transportation facilities and services, but to deliver them in a manner that addresses structural injustices and inequities.” DDOT has, in recent years, compromised that commitment.

• DDOT removed protected bike lanes from Arizona Ave. NW and downgraded stretches of bike lanes being constructed on Kansas Ave. from protected to buffered. DDOT classifies both as arterials. MoveDC stipulates that their bike lanes should be “fully protected.” This is a safety matter! 
• In addition, DDOT removed the Arizona Ave. bike lanes less than a year after they were installed, contrary to DDOT policy calling for a before/after evaluation to be conducted not sooner than eighteen months after completion of a project. DDOT’s 2026 Pre-Hearing Responses state, “To ensure sufficient time for data collection, evaluations will not be completed until at least 18 months after the completion of construction.” DDOT’s removal of several blocks of Arizona Ave. NW protected bike lanes  just half a year ago contradict this assertion. 
• The currently available​ DDOT Bicycle Facility Design Guide, Version 2, published in 2020, does not reflect DDOT policy updated via moveDC 2021. For instance, moveDC 2021 directs that bikeway treatments on minor arterials such as Kansas Ave. should be “fully protected.” DDOT should update the Design Guide and the design of all projects currently underway to reflect current policy. Here are two instances:
  • Between 2024 and this last fall, DDOT removed planned bike lanes from the East Capitol Street project in Ward 7. MoveDC 2021 calls for bike lanes on East Capitol, and those should be fully protected since East Capitol is a principal arterial. 
  • Pennsylvania Ave. SE in Ward 7 is another example: a principal arterial that is slated for future bicycle safety improvements according to moveDC 2021, yet DDOT never updated the Pennsylvania and Minnesota Ave. SE intersection improvement project, whose design dates to 2018, to reflect their own safety policy!

DDOT’s 2026 Pre-Hearing Responses state, “MoveDC, which is the Department’s long-range strategic plan, ultimately guides DDOT’s planning goals and processes.” That the 2020 DDOT Bicycle Facility Design Guide has not been updated and that there are multiple instances of DDOT design decisions contrary to moveDC contradict that DDOT assertion. 

Frankly it’s disturbing to see so many instances of DDOT’s contravening their own safety policy, noting how far the city administration has to go to meet its Vision Zero commitment. WABA calls on DDOT to return to a Safety First policy. Council members, please make this call your own.

Expanding Mobility Options

Expanding mobility options is a third concern. 

Noting New York City’s unequivocal success with Manhattan congestion pricing: 

• DDOT still hasn’t released its 2019 report on road pricing, contrary to a legal requirement and to a 2023 DC Council vote. WABA continues to press DDOT to release the road-pricing report as-is. We believe the council or mayor should then task DDOT to update the report in light of New York’s and other experiences and evolving conditions here in the District.  

On the mobility front, we appreciate that… 

• Capital Bikeshare (CaBi) and other District shared micromobility (bike and scooter) programs are booming – micromobility is about easy, affordable, convenient mobility and less traffic congestion – with many new CaBi stations installed in FY25-26 (although there’s work to do regarding where non-docked devices are left), and DDOT has continued to expand bike parking citywide.
• We applaud DDOT innovation, in particular a pilot program to get food-delivery operators on e-bikes and to explore quad-cycles for parcel delivery.

But on the negative side…

• DC’s streateries were about Streets for People! – DDOT’s term is “public space activation” – yet DDOT drastically rewrote streatery-program rules in recent months to eliminate most streateries, reverting what was active public space use to parking, not incidentally boosting traffic congestion.
• DC prohibits stopping, standing, or parking in a bike lane, but we continue to see far too many infractions. DDOT could prevent some of them by installing more-effective bike-lane separation barriers, and in commercial areas, by expanding and enforcing proper use of commercial loading zones.

We continue to call on DDOT to work with the Dept. of Public Works  to strategically assign responsibilities and prioritize high-use routes for proper cleaning and maintenance of protected bike lanes with leaf collection, debris sweeping, and snow removal.

Washington D.C. must provide safe, convenient, affordable transportation options for all who live, work, and visit here. Mayor Bowser has stated a framework of goals that includes safety, equity, mobility, and sustainability, to be achieved through a commitment to excellent transportation facilities and services, delivered in a manner that addresses structural injustices and inequities. 

We at WABA envision a just and sustainable region where walking, biking, and transit are the best ways to get around, in concordance with the District of Columbia’s commitments. We ask the mayor, council, and DDOT to implement our recommendations, and for DDOT to return to a Safety First policy, in order to meet the city’s commitments and create an even better District of Columbia.